Luigina Ciolfi

Computer technologies, especially ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies), have become ubiquitous in people’s lives. Nowadays, mobile phones, PDAs, laptops and a constellation of software applications are more and more used for a variety of activities carried out in both personal and professional lives. Given the features that these technologies provide and are provided with, for example, connectivity and portability, it can be said that ICTs have the potential to support nomadic work practices which are seen as increasingly characteristic of the knowledge economy. This chapter presents a review of the concept of nomadic work and, based on a broad literature analysis, discusses the ways in which ICTs may empower people who are involved with nomadic work practices. It aims to give a starting point for those who intend to develop further research on technologically-mediated nomadic work practices in the knowledge economy.

In this paper we discuss how an interaction design perspective on the design of interactive artefacts in public spaces can encourage us to explore certain issues concerning the inclusion of visitor input into our installations. We see the role of technology as supporting people's experiences of heritage–moving away from simple delivery of information towards enabling visitors to add to the content of the exhibition. This approach encourages active reflection, discussion and appropriation in the tradition of best practice in human-centred interaction (HCI) design. In this paper we discuss two exhibitions/installations in which we have been involved, Re-Tracing the Past and The Shannon Portal. The former was developed with the objective of engaging visitors and enhancing their overall experience of a personal museum collection; the latter had the goal of encouraging visitors and travellers to share their experience of Ireland. We then discuss the impact of this design strategy and analyse the role of visitors’ contributions to each exhibit, and the particular interactions between participants and the content they produced.

In this paper we discuss how geographical notions of space and place can aid designers in creating meaningful interactions between end users and technologically augmented physical spaces—specifically museums. We review the literature that discusses the use of spatial concepts and metaphors within the interaction design field and discuss several examples of interactive museum installations. We then describe how we have incorporated our understanding of place and human experience into the design and development of a hybrid museum space: an interactive exhibition entitled ‘Re-Tracing the Past’ at the Hunt Museum in Limerick, Ireland.

In this paper we present design work aimed at augmenting people's experiences of place within an international airport through a public interactive installation, ‘The Portal’. This design intervention had the aim of providing passengers located in the airport's transit lounge with novel possibilities for playful interaction, as well as allowing them to recount their journeys and visits around Ireland. This exhibit is part of the ‘Shared Worlds’ project, focused on studying people's behaviour and experience in public settings. The project's goal is exploring how a physical locale—which is shared and lived in by a number of inhabitants—could be augmented through digital technology in order to engage people. Our vision of interaction design is centred on the core notions of activity and place. Both include dimensions of affect and emotion as fundamentally linked with people's lived experiences of technology. In the paper we show how this approach has guided us through the design and deployment of the ‘Portal’, and how the affective dimension of people's interactions with technology has emerged around this particular installation.

This paper provides an overview of a project-based graduate course on the Design of Interactive Media for Public Spaces, which is part of a Masters programme of study in Interactive Media. Project teams make use of a variety of design methods over the 14-week course: students work through a complete design life-cycle using a combination of methods from observational studies through to concept design, prototyping, testing and evaluation. This paper outlines the structure of the course and illustrates two examples of projects completed by student teams. The paper shows how it is possible in a short time-frame to have students undertake a real-world-based design project, bringing it to the stage of preliminary prototype design. It emphasizes the importance of using a combination of methods, and of supporting students' reflections on their design practice and experiences during the project.

This paper reports research and design work focused on enhancing visitor experience of an open-air museum, Bunratty Folk Park in County Clare (Ireland). We will discuss how existing work in the domain of museum technologies has so far dealt little with open-air sites. Our approach aimed at developing themes of participation and visitor contribution at a site that differs from indoor exhibitions on the grounds of size, structure and material on display. We will describe the background research and design research towards an interactive multi-device installation entitled “Reminisce” for Bunratty Folk Park, informed by a focus centred on visitor activities and their experience of place. We will then provide examples of visitors’ interactions with Reminisce in order to show how this approach can lead to successful design interventions.